15 Answers
15

Our company had us using Freshbooks with this widget to make sure they were sending out all billable hours. I have also used toggl in the past and liked it but quickly grew out of it as our projects started to become more custom jobs than just creating a wordpress site.

Now we use LiquidPlanner and they do not have a really convenient way of time tracking so I am now using the API to build us a widget.

I have fought this time tracking issue for years because it seems no one has yet to build a solution that is tailored to my needs.

mactimelog was really cool but it doesn't seem they have the equivalent to this for windows. But the cool part about it was that it spit a detailed report or just a text log file. And it was mostly all command control so it felt kind of nerdy.

Good luck, finding a time tracker you are comfortable with is hard. I usually use one for 2 weeks, then think of some kind of functionality that would be cool but missing from my time tracker so I start to look again.

Advantages

supports complete workflow from brainstorming/note taking over planning/doing up to documentation and reporting

actively developed with very supportive community

Disadvantages

maybe difficult learning curve in the beginning, if you're not yet familiar with Emacs and its concepts

Clocking

With Emacs and org-mode, you can create tasks and clock in/clock out of them with a keyboard shortcut:

"Org-mode allows you to clock the time you spend on specific tasks in
a project. When you start working on an item, you can start the clock.
When you stop working on that task, or when you mark the task done,
the clock is stopped and the corresponding time interval is recorded.
It also computes the total time spent on each subtree of a project.
And it remembers a history or tasks recently clocked, to that you can
jump quickly between a number of tasks absorbing your time."

Exporting

Emacs org-mode also has very flexible and powerful export capabilities (see http://orgmode.org/manual/Exporting.html ) which make it quite easy to create reports in other formats like plain text, html or pdf and share the data with other non-Emacs-users.

I know you don't want that, but I've been using a single worklog.txt file for years, and it works for me. It's easily searchable, and never grew big enough to make the text editor slow down. The file is always open all day, so I can add to it quickly.

After the first weeks, the formatting ended up like this:

2012-01-16
30m : revised the CSS of the main page 20 minutes
7.5h : new module for custumer support
2012-01-15
4h : new module for custumer support
4h : issue #3456 with newlines

I often throw in some notes about the topic I worked on.
I rarely log times smaller than 30 minutes, and I sometimes skip writing status like 'done'.
I prefer appending new stuff at the top of the file.

Every other day I also use the file to feed whatever time-tracking tool the management uses.

I recommend ManicTimer (http://www.manictime.com/) - as mentioned in the previous post -, too. The software logs the software and files you are currently using. Additionally you can tag your activities with project names.

I think this is the best way. It combines focus on getting tasks done and accountability with time. You can do the Pomodoro Technique with an app like the above or just with a notebook and pen. It should be really easy to account for the time and show how much progress you are making.
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Stuart WoodwardAug 29 '12 at 0:21

I'd look at something Autohotkey-esque like QuickLogger at http://quicklogger.com/?page_id=9
Also - autohotkey.com has some great scripts you can tweak without problems. The most important thing is that it's fast to use and not super complicated. Saves to a CSV so you can import it to a spreadsheet and calculate.

On my last job I used a simple time tracker program which I annoyingly do not remeber the name of (and is currently searching for it again). It stored its information in text files (xml IIRC), had a list of the tasks you were working on where is kept track of time spent on the current task. The program was developed from approximately someone eastern Europe (Hungary or Polen maybe), and the author had given the program a name which ment work in a (slightly?) negative meaning. Anyone that could comment/update this answer with the proper name?

Update: I remembered the name of the tool: Rachota. It is a simple but highly useful portable java application.

I recommend you check this tool which can help you list your entire tasks for the day and tracks time accurately. It can also help you organize tasks depends on priority level or depends on what you desire to do. Using this tool it tracks effectively all of your activities in REAL TIME. This gives you a reading on exactly where you spent your time, and how much of that time was productive or unproductive. It includes tracking all you computer activities from websites, applications, documents and etc. that has been actively being used and for how you have been using it. Using this tool is also a great way of keeping your focus, limits wasted time and boost productivity.